Modular Politics: Toward a Governance Layer for Online Communities
Authors: Nathan Schneider, Primavera De Filippi, Seth Frey, Joshua Z. Tan & Amy X. Zhang (2021) Published in: Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 5(CSCW1), Article 16
A research paper arguing for a “modular politics” approach to online community governance — the idea that governance components (voting mechanisms, membership rules, deliberation formats, enforcement procedures) should be built as interoperable modules that communities can assemble, customize, and swap as their needs evolve.
This paper directly informs the Network Nations framework’s conception of networked technologies as governance primitives. The modular governance stack — composable layers of identity, treasury, voting, and adjudication — maps directly onto the Network Nations institutional architecture. Co-authored by Nathan Schneider and Primavera De Filippi, it bridges the commons/cooperative tradition with Web3 technical governance design.
Referenced in: Network Nations essay